Highly successful rifle team the Wolf Pack's hidden secret since 1995

The Wolf Pack rifle team’s home range is as anonymous as the team itself.

The range is a mile from the heart of campus in the second story of a more-or-less abandoned genomics building off Valley Road. The building is cold, dilapidated, hidden. Even with a GPS, it’s hard to find.

But once you do find the building, you’ll find the hidden gem of the Wolf Pack athletic department. The rifle team isn’t just the most anonymous on campus. It’s also the most successful. The stairwell leading to the range includes 11 trophies, including a second-place national finish in 2004, and 32 All-American certificates.

Elsa Ochsner, a member of the Wolf Pack rifle team, aims at a target Wednesday. (Marilyn Newton/RGJ)

Despite all of those achievements – Nevada has finished in the top 15 nationally every year since 2000 – even the members of the team are shocked when somebody actually realizes who they are.

Just ask team captain Elsa Ochsner, a senior who laughs while recalling the story of a Northern Nevada resident who actually noticed them in the Las Vegas airport earlier this season.

“We had a layover there, and some lady saw us and said, ‘You’re the rifle team! You have a really high GPA!’” Ochsner said. “We were, like, ‘You know about us?’ It was super exciting. We were, like, ‘We have a fan!’ We’re always super excited when people actually know about us because it’s pretty rare.”

Added freshman Jessica Katsuyama: “I wear my Nevada gear all of the time and I’ve had a lot of people come up and say, ‘We have a rifle team? I didn’t even know that.’”

A rich history

Despite its low-profile existence, the Wolf Pack rifle team has a far-reaching history.

The university first fielded a team in 1898 and has existed in some form ever since. In 1956, the team won the school’s first national championship. In 1995, Wolf Pack rifle became an NCAA-sanctioned team, 15 years after the NCAA adopted the sport (there are currently 48 NCAA rifle teams).

Coach Fred Harvey, 60, who spent 20 years in the Army, created the team with the help of then-athletic director Chris Ault thanks to Title IX. Harvey, who shot at West Point and was teaching in Nevada’s ROTC program, just wanted to stay attached to the sport. He’s ended up building a premier program.

“Given the resourcing that we had, I never expected us to get as far as we have,” Harvey said.

The fact the Wolf Pack’s rifle team, which is ranked 18th in the nation this season, is still alive is a testament to Harvey, who draws a meager $10,000 salary, most of which he donates to the program.

Nevada has the only rifle team in the continental United States that is West of the Rocky Mountains. Teams at the University of San Francisco, Cal and San Jose State have all shuttered, with the latter two using their ranges as storage units. But the Wolf Pack is still going strong, despite a university budget of just $25,000 and an annual allowance of 3.6 scholarships per season, because of Harvey.

“From a very black and white standpoint, this program would not have started without him,” junior Zachary Duncan said. “He started this program from the ground up and he has turned it into a very successful program. We wouldn’t be where we’re at without him. There’s no substitute for him. Quite frankly, I don’t think the team would be alive right now without him.”

Coach Fred Harvey, the only coach in program history, has been the driving force behind the Wolf Pack rifle team. (Marilyn Newton/RGJ)

Wolf Pack AD Doug Knuth called Harvey an “amazing person” and a “difference maker” on campus. The first-year athletic director said he’s never worked at a school with a rifle team and called it eye-opening.

“The level of precision, the dedication, the commitment to excellence that Coach and his athletes have is great,” Knuth said. “When you’re talking about hundredths of millimeters being the difference between a good shot and a bad shot, that’s a whole different level of expertise. That level of discipline and commitment and precision actually translates back to academics as well.”

Hitting the bulls-eye

Ochsner joked that when people learn she’s on the rifle team they assume the team hunts animals. Duncan said people he speaks with oftentimes think the team twirls the rifles like in an ROTC drill.

It’s actually a lot more difficult than that: this is Olympic-style shooting in two disciplines.

There’s small bore, which is shot from 50 feet in three positions (prone, kneeling and standing), and air rifle, which is shot at the standing position from 10 meters away.

The bulls-eye in air rifle is the size of a quarter. But hitting that isn’t the real task. That’s a given. The goal is to hit the center of the bulls-eye, a mark that’s the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

“The margin of error is not a whole lot,” said Duncan, in a grand understatement.

Duncan, who stands around 5-foot-7, joked that he’s “not terribly athletic.” He said catching a football 10 times in a row would be reason to celebrate. But rifle is not a sport of brute strength or athleticism.

“This is not a sport where the bigger guy or the faster guy gets through,” Duncan said. “At the end of the day, it’s your mental game that’s a lot more important than anything else.”

That emphasis on mental over physical gives rifle a unique niche in the NCAA: it is college’s only co-ed sport in which the men and women compete against one another for the same championship.

Of Nevada’s 17 team members, 12 are females. Harvey estimated that one-third of the NCAA individual champions are females. In the recruiting process, Harvey looks for shooters who are musicians (both require synchronization between the eye, brain and finger), good students and perfectionists.

“Shooting is like golf,” he said. “You have your equipment and you have a goal and you try to get it done. When you do, you feel great. When you don’t, it’s frustrating. This sport is frequently frustrating.”

Junior Zachary Duncan checks his rifle after a shot at the Wolf Pack's range during a practice Wednesday. (Marilyn Newton/RGJ)

Building for the future

The Wolf Pack’s cozy second-story range atop that old academic building is fine for air rifle, but not for small bore. For that discipline, the team has to set up Conex boxes, metal shipping containers, on the Wolf Pack’s baseball field. In the winter, the team can’t practice small bore because of the weather.

It’s a less-than-ideal situation that Harvey is trying to remedy. He’s trying to raise funds for a state-of-the-art rifle range that would sit on the school’s campus, a facility he estimates at $4 million-$6 million.

“If we get the new range, we will be on our way to being a top-five program forever,” Harvey said.

Local architect Terrence Melby, an avid sportsman, discovered the team in May and has been one of the lead supporters in trying to raise funds for the program. Melby said he’d like to see the team get the same support as high-profile sports like football and basketball and is doing all he can to raise money.

Melby said he’s put out some feelers already and is getting positive feedback from the community.

“It’s like the snowball rolling down the hill,” Melby said. “It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

Knuth also is proponent in finding the funding for the new range, saying it’s near the top of his capital improvements to-do list. Knuth said it’s of huge interest to him because he also sees the facility as a fascinating community engagement piece that could allow local residents the option of using the range.

Since becoming an NCAA sport in 1980, rifle has been dominated by two schools – West Virginia and Alaska-Fairbanks, who have combined to win 25 of the 34 national titles. Nevada has consistently placed in the top 8-10 spots, but the new facility would put the Wolf Pack over the top, Harvey said.

“If we get a new range, West Virginia and Alaska and Kentucky would be very unhappy with us because we would take the kids that they would have gotten otherwise,” he said. “I look forward to that day.”

WOLF PACK’S RIFLE TEAM

What: The Wolf Pack has one of 48 NCAA-sanctioned rifle teams in the nation

Who: The Wolf Pack has 17 members (five men; 12 women); the team gets 3.6 scholarships per year

Where: The team practices on the second story of an old academic building off Valley Road

History: Nevada has had shooting since 1898, but became an NCAA team in 1995 (Nevada won a national title in 1956; it finished second in 2004 and has been top 15 nationally every year since 2000)

Coach: Fred Harvey started the program in 1995 and is the longest-tenured coach at Nevada

WOLF PACK RIFLE FUNDRAISER

What: Dessert reception fundraiser for the Nevada rifle team

Where: John Ascuaga’s Nugget

When: Thursday, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Cost: $10 donation requested

Also: Event includes a cake decorating contest held between Reno’s bakeries and casinos; there also will be an equipment exhibit, shooting demonstration and virtual tour of the planned rifle facility

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at cmurray@rgj.com or follow him on Twitter @MurrayRGJ.

I appreciate your coverage of Mike Martino. You are a tremendous writer and one of the main reasons I subscribe to the RJG although I live in Atlanta. Until 1989 boxing was a University sponsored sport before Chris Ault made the dumbest and most unpopular decision of his distinguished career at Nevada and relegated boxing to a club sport. Maybe Doug Knuth, who seems to be a class act, can undo the inventor of the pistol offense's bad decision and restore boxing as a University sport again.

Thanks, Phil. I know a few sports would like to move up to the NCAA level, including skiing (again). It would take a nice chunk of money to do that, so I wouldn't anticipate it, but it would be nice to see Nevada above the minimum allowance of sports to be a D-I member.

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Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Chris Murray takes you behind Northern Nevada’s sports scene, focusing on stories you can’t find anywhere else. Chris earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Nevada, Reno. He’s won multiple Nevada Press Association awards and been honored in the Associated Press Sports Editors Top 10 five times. Follow him on Twitter at @MurrayRGJ.